One of the aspects of my job about which I haven't written much is that I'm the volunteer coordinator, on top of everything else I do. When I was out of town a couple of weeks ago, the museum apparently entered into a contract with the Roanoke City Court-Community Corrections department. Resultantly, we've had a daily influx of people looking to fulfill community service requirements at the museum.
Initially, this doesn't sound so bad. We're guaranteed that these folks have not been convicted of violent crimes, or crimes of theft or vandalism. Mainly, this is the traffic violation crowd. Moreover, we're guaranteed that they'll show up for work. So, there are some benefits.
The biggest downside, however, is that I was caught totally off-guard. When three of them showed up my first day back to work after vacation, I had absolutely nothing for them to do. I actively pursue volunteers for the museum. I utilize volunteer websites, I call schools, church groups, and community clubs. I send out fliers to various public venues, and I arrange for small groups to do projects that I have pre-prepared. This system works great for me, and has yielded good results for the museum. The mother of all monkey wrenches got thrown into my system by this immigration of speeders and parking ticket collectors. Had I known they were coming, I could have had some things for them to do, but, we've had two per day on average, and right now I just don't have enough.
To ice this particular cake, the Executive Director has been out of town since I got back, so he's been zero help at trying to tell the court that we're swamped. I would do it, but I don't even know who the contact is, and my phone calls have all met voice mails that have obviously not been heard, or cared about. The ED is back tomorrow, and we're scheduled for a meeting on this, thankfully.
Meanwhile, with school out for the summer, the parents of some of our Junior Volunteers have assumed us to be a babysitting service. They drop their kids off when we open, and pick them up on their way home from work. Never mind if I don't have enough for five 13-year olds to do. There they are. I've got to make some phone calls on this. I never thought I'd say it, but we've got more hands than we know what to do with right now.
Objectively, there are worse problems to have.
1 comment:
Hello - I just found your blog (better late than never). I am a fellow volunteer coordinator at a local museum and I feel your pain. Let me know if you ever want to commiserate! Congratulations on your engagement by the way.
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